Vinnarasan Aruldoss
I am a Research Fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London. My current research explores the relationship between childhood and public life in everyday life by using multimodal ethnography. I am particualry interested in interdisciplinary research that contributes knowledge to the broader domains of childhood, early years provision, social policy analysis and social theories.
Biography
Currently, I am working as a Research Fellow in an ERC funded Connectors Study at Goldsmiths, University of London. My current post-doctoral research, which began in May 2014 at Sussex University, explores the lived experiences of everyday childhoods at the intersection of politics, participation and public life. The study is carried out in three cities: Athens, Hyderabad and London, and am mainly responsible for conducting research in Hyderabad (India) besides my overall theoretical and methodological contributions to the study.Prior to this, I had obtained doctoral training at The University of Edinburgh in Social Policy with a particular focus on early years. My academic training in social policy and childhood studies is well complimented by strong professional practice. I had worked for several years with civil society organisations, state/central governments and multilateral agencies as a lead social development practitioner in India. In particular, I directly worked with children after 2004 Tsunami: directed the implementation of community based psychosocial intervention programme for Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF-B) and provided consultation to a local NGO on children’s rights in the post-disaster context. I also worked with UNDP on Strengthening State Plans for Human Development and several non-profit organisations on a range of social development and humanitarian issues such as education for all, child protection, disaster response and preparedness, decentralised human development planning, rights of the children living in the margins of the society, and caste and gender based discrimination.
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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I am specialised in inter-disciplinary research that contributes knowledge to the broader domains of social theories, theorising childhood, early years provision, children’s rights and social policy analysis. My current research involves extensive ethnographic fieldwork, creative methods and rigorous empirical analysis in order to understand the complex phenomenon called childhood, with a particular focus on children’s participation and their emerging political orientations towards public life. Till date, I have published works mainly in the fields of sociology of childhood, political sociology, early years education and childhood policy. My forthcoming publications explore embodiment, gender orientation, political agency/subjectivity, emotion, research ethics, cultural capital and public sphere. My scholarly interests are particularly directed towards but not limited to the works of Foucault, Butler, Bourdieu, Habermas and Deleuze.
Books
Articles
Political Activism across the Life Course
Published: Jul 05, 2017 by Contemporary Social Science
Authors: Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, Christos Varvantakis & Vinnarasan Aruldoss
Subjects:
Family Studies, Sociology & Social Policy, Anthropology - Soc Sci
The study of political activism has neglected people’s personal and social relationships to time. Age, life course and generation have become increasing important experiences for understanding political participation and political outcomes. The essay argues that the study of political activism can be enriched by engaging with the temporal dimensions of people’s everyday social experiences.
Talking Politics in Everyday Family Lives
Published: Jun 14, 2017 by Contemporary Social Science
Authors: Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, Christos Varvantakis & Vinnarasan Aruldoss
Subjects:
Family Studies, Sociology & Social Policy, Anthropology - Soc Sci
Working with three family histories where political talk was reported by parents to be a practice encountered in their own childhoods and one which they continued in the present amongst themselves as a couple/parents, we make two arguments: that children’s political talk, where it occurs, is idiomatic and performative; and that what is transmitted across generations is the practice of talking politics.
(Im)Possible Conversations? Activism, Childhood and Everyday Life
Published: May 24, 2016 by Journal of Social and Political Psychology
Authors: Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, Christos Varvantakis & Vinnarasan Aruldoss
Subjects:
Family Studies, Sociology & Social Policy, Anthropology - Soc Sci, Social Psychology
The paper offers an analytical exploration and points of connection between the categories of activism, childhood and everyday life. We are concerned with the lived experiences of activism and childhood broadly defined and especially with the ways in which people become aware, access, orient themselves to, and act on issues of common concern; in other words what connects people to activism.